


Dare

by MethylNox



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 01:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15570753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MethylNox/pseuds/MethylNox
Summary: After a few drinks, Edgar wakes up to some dreadful news. But things don't go quite as he expected. And they don't go as Jimmy expected either. What Johnny expected, though, we will never know.





	Dare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesdemonaKaylose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/gifts).



> 1: For Dez.
> 
> 2: I am not a native English speaker. Do pardon my mistakes. I am always trying to get better at this.

# Dare

## Chapter 1: Hangover

It had been just one fucking beer for Christ’s sake!

Just one!

He couldn’t have gotten drunk from just one beer. He could hold his liquor way better than that and a single Corona was no match for his Latin heritage.

A single Corona and… and a shot of vodka? Or had it been whiskey? No, it had been tequila. If you call tequila the awful urine-smelling crap sold at ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’, apparently the only bar in the city that had an original Japanese sake bottle but wouldn’t get a hold of a decent bottle of tequila.

In a second thought, judging by his throbbing headache, it could have as well been rat’s poison.

Now, Edgar was not a party kind of guy. Boy, that’s the last thing that he would ever be! But apparently ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ suspicious bottle of tequila had turned his night to be lots of things that he thought could never possibly be.

The buzzing of his phone came to him and it felt like a punishing electric saw on his temples, breaking the silence of his room and whatever little peace he found in it. Edgar ignored it as much as he could, but each note felt like a giant bell smashing inside his skull. At the tenth ring, he had no choice but to answer.

“… Yes?” His voice was raspy, the single syllable was enough to make his throat hurt. He also realized that the awful reek he smelled didn’t come from an open garbage container but from his own mouth.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” Edgar threw his phone three feet away.

“… the fuck?” He hissed, closing his eyes. From the other side of the room, he could still hear a demanding and clearly furious voice calling up to him. It took Edgar a couple of seconds, but when he finally managed to match a face with that voice he forced himself to crawl out of his bed.

“Tess? Ssh - wait, wait please don’t yell, please it feels like you’re splitting my head in two - just - please… tell me what’s the matter?” If Edgar hoped to get a little sympathy from his sister, he was seriously wrong.

“WHAT? YOU FEELING A BIT HUNGOVER, UH!? Well, after all that happened yesterday that should be the LEAST of your worries, Edgar Vargas.”

Lying on the ground, his head was on fire, his mouth was dry, and his eyes were blurry. Edgar suddenly felt reality coming down to him. Deformed memories crowded the halls of his mind as they struggled to get out of the front door, all at the same time. Until, suddenly, the door yielded. 

“Oh my god, Tess, what did I do?”

And even when every fiber of his muscles protested, he reached for his glasses, put his sister’s call on loudspeaker and started to check his notifications and messages. There were almost 150 notifications and Edgar never ever had more than 5 notifications a day.

He sat on the bed and took a quick look at the messages and photographs on his social media.

“ _‘I had no idea you could dance so well, call me!’ ‘You sing like an angel, well at least the parts that I could understand.’ 'I knew you had it in you Vargas, party animal!’_ ” he read.

“You know, everything was going well. We were having a wonderful time and I thought you were having fun. When you went on stage and to the karaoke I understood that maybe you had drunk too much but it seemed like you could still hold it.”

The photos on Edgar’s social networks changed, in some of them the background of ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ was clear but then the rest were obviously taken on the street and in other bars, at least 3.

“But when you left without telling me I kind of panicked,” Tess’s voice now sounded more hurt than annoyed. “And then Tenna told me you left with that guy!” 

“ _'That’s an ass I’d like to fuck’ 'You’re wild Vargas, are you free next Saturday?’ 'Hey glasses guy, it was nice to meet you, come back anytime, you and your boy- boyfriend.’_ ” Edgar finished in a very defeated tone.

It felt as if a bucket of icy water had dropped on his head.

“B-boyfriend? Tess, do I have a boyfriend now!?”

“You really don’t remember anything?”

“I don’t-”

Tess sighed.

“Look, the last time I saw you, you were on stage. I went out with Anne for a moment and when I came back you were gone. Tenna told me you left the bar with that creep.” Tess spat out the last as if it was an insult.

“With what creep - oh…” Edgar saw him, in one of the photographs in an unknown bar, sitting next to him, looking straight into the camera with a twisted smile, gray eyes framed by a thick layer of black eyeliner that was already starting to run off. Edgar felt chills like the first time he saw him entering ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ two months ago.

“With that freak, the one who looks like the other weirdo that your friends with. That guy Timmy.”

“Jimmy.”

“Yes, that one!”

“Oh my God-” Edgar sank into the bed and stayed there in silence for a few minutes. Tess didn’t hang up, she knew her brother well enough to know what he was thinking.

“Do you want me to go and tell him that you broke up with him?”

“Oh please, Tess, we’re not twelve years old anymore, I’ll see him, okay?”

“Okay.” the communication was cut off.

Edgar had grown up in a religious family but never until then did he truly understand the phrase “The weight of your sins will fall on you”.

Another buzzing pulled him out of his reveries. He didn’t recognize the number, but he did recognize the face on the sender’s icon: gray eyes, crooked smile, tongue sticking out.

**_'I’ll see you at the ‘The Happy Whale’ at 7’_ **

Edgar watched the bright screen with trepidation. No message seconded the first.

 ** _'Ok’_** he answered.

 ** _’:)’_** was all Jimmy texted.

 _'I’m fucked up beyond recognition’_ Edgar thought as he went into the shower.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Love is a very curious thing, to say the least. It seems that some people have it all figured out. They know what they want, what they like and what makes them feel good.

But there are other people who are simply not like that.

Edgar belongs to these people. He reached that conclusion the second time he shampooed his hair. While the warm water ran over his body, he let his mind wander for a moment into his past. Faces and situations that he usually tried to push away now came to the surface as easily as the steam rose in his shower.

When he was younger he thought that life’s paths were clear for him: he would soon settle down with a performing arts student. Edgar loved theater, of course. Once he finished his Psychology career he would set his practice and they both would go out together to see plays every afternoon. They could also go to the movies. Or maybe they could share an afternoon reading in their living room. Or even cooking together.

 _'What was her name?’_ His headache was starting to recede thanks to the painkillers _'I think her name was Laura - she was very harsh, though. And then the cemetery thing happened, it was not going to work.’_

The scent of soapy lavender and mint made him feel better.

Maybe the theater wasn’t the best idea, maybe Paleontology was better. That was an interesting branch. Edgar imagined the long walks in the museum, the vacations to the most inhospitable places, the conversations that very few people could interrupt with a relevant opinion.

 _'And then - Hal, yes …’_ He frowned slightly _‘That’s a face I do not want to remember. He was too intense, too much drama - it wasn’t going to turn out well.’_

The water stopped running and he and began to dry himself.

Visual arts! That is a good career. It combined museums, interesting conversations and they could even enjoy the theater as well. A student of Visual Arts would be a perfect choice.

_‘And Devi – heh… No, it would never work, I think we’re just very different kind of people.’_

Brown pants and a green shirt: a classic for him. He began to dress but stopped for a second when the next face appeared in his mind.

_‘Johnny…’_

Nothing had happened with Johnny, not yet. Edgar always greeted him at the coffee shop every Friday. Whether he was buried reading Kafka or working on his laptop, surrounded by many, too many empty cups of coffee building a small fortress around him.

The thick circles around his eyes and his manners weren’t exactly what started their conversations, but it was something else, something he couldn’t place his finger on. There was always something about Johnny.

Edgar wasn’t going to invite him out, but he did enjoy being around him, for now. Although, he had found himself thinking about Johnny at the most inadequate moments of his day. Sometimes he even wondered: And what if it was true? And what if it was real? Edgar felt the vibe that Johnny also enjoyed the time they spent together.

Once he even found a cup of coffee by Johnny’s side, intact.

“For you,” Johnny had told him.

And everything began to make sense around them.

Until…

_“Who do I have to blow to get a decent shot of tequila in this place!?”_

He looked a lot like Johnny. Similar clothes, similar hairstyle, but he was noticeably higher. And his skin was lighter, at least what could be seen under the heavy layers of makeup on his face.

His ways were not like Johnny’s, at all. Edgar had overheard him talking with Dillon and that younger boy, Eric, a couple of times. 

_'That band, yes I have heard of it - Have you seen her ass? - I wouldn’t fuck her in a thousand years - Oh yeah, I’ve seen him, I think his name is Johnny -’_

It was then when Edgar crossed eyes with him. And Jimmy looked back, for a long time… and then he smiled.

_'Hey Jimmy, we’re going to ‘Pikyu’, you coming?’_

After that Edgar saw him roaming ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ every weekend without fail, also on Wednesdays. But now Jimmy wouldn’t sit near him. He would sit farther, Edgar swore he could feel his gaze upon him.

Some nights Edgar couldn’t help, oh God, he could not help but look back at him.

He finished dressing and combed his hair, he then put on his jacket and left. This would be the first time that he would talk to Jimmy, at least sober, and it would be to end his just acquired relationship.

_‘Laura, Hal, Devi, Johnny - Jimmy?’_

The weather was good. He would go to the music store before heading to his destination. He still had to buy that Blu-ray his sister wanted for her birthday. 

‘The Happy Whale’ was only a few blocks away.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

How do you tell someone that it’s over? The previous times he hadn’t done it. His partners had taken the initiative. And Edgar didn’t hold a grudge for it, oh no, on the contrary, he was grateful.

'Well, I’ll make a fine therapist someday, oh yes.’ He scorned himself.

It’s always easier to talk about other people’s problems than our own. That’s what he thought while waiting in the line for the cash register at the music store.

“Is that going to be all, Vargas?” A high-pitched, affected voice took him out of his daydreams. He looked at the cashier and it took him only a few seconds to recognize him. It was an easy task even without the makeup and with the store’s uniform. Edgar had seen that face many times.

“Eric, right? I didn’t know you worked here.” Edgar gave him a brief smile, polite and impersonal.

“Yes, it’s a more or less a new job.” It seemed to Edgar that Eric looked at him with suspicion and disdain, like someone who looks at a snake through a glass that is too thin.

Edgar couldn’t understand why. He had only exchanged a word with Eric a couple of times before and he was sure that it had only been to ask for the time. Edgar was starting to feel nervous until the obvious reason popped into his mind.

“Umh - were you at ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ yesterday, Eric?” The young cashier’s blue eyes narrowed until they turned into two pale blue lines.

“Yes, so you and Jimmy, huh?”

Oh no, Eric liked Jimmy for sure and now Edgar was in the middle. Wait, but he wasn’t, really? 

Was he?

“Yeah, well, I - I don’t remember it very well.”

“You don’t remember it well? It seemed that you two were having a great time, I never thought of you like that, Vargas, I didn’t think you were that kind of person, you know - the kind that has fun.” Eric leaned on the counter, Edgar couldn’t tell if the little pointy things that poked out of his lips were his usual plastic fangs or his real fangs.

“Well I-”

“Do you like to have fun, Vargas?” Eric had half of his body on the counter, Edgar looked over his shoulder, hoping there was someone else waiting in line, but they were alone in the store. “You plan to have a lot of fun with him, right?”

Enough.

Edgar was not going to be intimidated by a boy who was a foot shorter than he was, and who was probably quite younger.

“Yes, actually yes.” That was not what he wanted to say. “I mean - not using him but with him, I -” That was not what he wanted to say. Edgar took a deep breath “Listen, just give me the damn Blu-ray, okay? It’s none of your business.”

Eric’s face turned red as he passed the merchandise through the laser. He handed him the bag, Edgar took it, but Eric didn’t let it go, his blue eyes still fixed on the older man’s.

“But it is my business.” After wrestling a little, Eric dropped the bag. “He may be new in town but he’s not alone, okay?”  
Edgar left the store slamming the door.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ten minutes before Seven O’clock. ‘The Happy Whale’ was half full, there were still enough empty tables to sit all the customers of ‘Kafka’s Cow Bar’ on a crowded Saturday night. It’s funny that Jimmy asked him to go to that place, the place where he and Johnny met each Friday. He hadn’t realized that little detail until he got inside the coffee shop.

‘The Happy Whale’ had the usual appearance: a place that is about to go bankrupt. One would think that they dismissed the disheveled hipster style and chose the “Unsafe living conditions” one.

Edgar still felt upset after the incident with Eric, he didn’t take the kid as the kind of person he should be aware of. People always made fun of the little vampire-wannabe, Edgar even came to defend him from Tess’s snarky comments. But a few moments ago, he had really shown his fangs at him - in figurative speech. Jimmy must really mean a lot to him.

He chose a table by the window and instinctively looked at the left corner of the place. Johnny was not there. It was not a Friday. Although Edgar didn’t visit ‘The Happy Whale’ enough to know if Johnny often lingered there.

He ordered an Americano, with two sugar cubes.

The seventh hour arrived, but it arrived alone. Second cup of coffee, this time with little cream. Maybe a biscotti.

Seven plus fifteen. This time it would be tea, three cups of coffee in a row and at such a late hour was not a good idea. He would order a biscotti, definitely.

Half past seven. Well, this was a situation Edgar hadn’t considered. But thinking twice it was the best thing that could have happened to him. This guy Jimmy maybe realized that everything had been a mistake, surely. He was also drunk and in a moment of panic he decided to meet him to clarify things but now he regretted it because he thought it was a waste of time and that he simply wouldn’t go to give a clear message. 

_'Hey, I’m not interested, I’m so uninterested that I decided not to come’ and then-_

“Edgar, right?”

Edgar almost jumped out of his chair. When had he arrived? He didn’t even notice when he sat in the chair right in front of him.

“Yeah, yes - I am Edgar and you are…”

“Jimmy” He was wearing a much less flashy outfit than the ones Edgar had seen: only a pair of black jeans, a T-shirt with a band logo and a pair boots that were too much like Johnny’s. He wasn’t wearing makeup more than the black eyeliner, although maybe it was just his natural dark eye circles.

“Jimmy, half an hour late.” Edgar frowned, the guy looked much younger than he did before, was he even twenty-one?

“Actually, it’s Jimmy Reeds, hah …” you could tell he was forcing the smile and that his eyes were swollen, apparently Edgar’s theory was true “I don’t have a watch.”

“You have a cell phone”

“So?”

"Cell phones have watches."

“Oh.” Jimmy put his elbows on the table and massaged his temples.

Edgar felt a twinge of guilt from who knows where.

“Hey, take these,” He pulled a couple of painkillers out of his jacket and handed them over. “They’re painkillers, they’ll make you feel better.” Jimmy swallowed them dry to Edgar’s horror.

“Oh thanks, thanks” Jimmy closed his eyes for a couple of minutes, Edgar didn’t want to interrupt “- so, last night, huh?”

“Yes, apparently it was the celebration of the century, I would like to remember it even a little.” Edgar was feeling more comfortable talking to the young man.

“So - you don’t remember either?” Jimmy opened one eye under his arm.

“Nope. And I can see that it’s your case. You know, we can leave it like that, I don’t want to cause you problems or anything I-”

“Well I do, I do remember a little, you know?” Jimmy looked down, “I remember you were singing at the karaoke and then you came up and asked if I wanted to sing with you, I told you to get lost but you stayed there at my table. And then we went to the other bar-” the young man continued massaging his temples “We played pool and drank and ate and then we went to that other place, and the other and, ngh-” 

Edgar felt his blood freezing “- and the last thing I remember is that you asked me to go out together, just like, really together and-” Edgar felt his blood boiling “- and then I woke up in my bed, I don’t remember anything else. I thought you would remember something, Eric is furious with me and he doesn’t want to tell me how I got there.”

“Oh yes, Eric!” Edgar said, undoing a lump in his throat “I ran into him a while ago, sorry, I didn’t want to cause you problems with your boyfriend, really-”

“The. Fuck. Are. You. Saying.” Jimmy yelled and immediately regretted it, sinking deeper into the chair, the painkillers weren’t all set in yet. “No, God, no, Eric is my cousin! I live with him. No, no, no. You’re wrong, very wrong.”

“Oh - Well, he cares a lot for you, that’s sure”

“What? That’s not true, he doesn’t give a shit, the other time he got me fired and, well, whatever. Short tale is I sent you the message because I thought you’d know what had happened and because, because-” Jimmy looked down, biting his lip “Well you said that. and I thought-” the young man swallowed, and Edgar’s gaze became blurry “Well I saw you at the bar and I know you have seen me too and I thought-”

The bell rang.

And Edgar’s heart stopped dead.

Johnny went into the coffee shop and passed them by, didn’t look at them for a second. He went straight to the usual table, sat with his back to them and opened his laptop.

Edgar must have had a very honest and misplaced expression on his face because when he finally looked back at Jimmy he realized that he was also looking at Johnny.

“Do you know him?” Jimmy asked

“Yes, his name is Johnny and sometimes he comes here.” Edgar’s red alarms were buzzing inside his ears. “Do you know him?”

“I know where he lives” Jimmy smiled widely, Edgar panicked, that smile reminded him too much to Johnny’s smile at very unfortunate times.

“You know what, you should introduce me”

“What? I won’t-”

“Why not?” Jimmy asked, offended.

“Because - because this is our date! Yes, it’s our date, and we must leave. Right now.”

“But what-”

Edgar threw a couple of dollars on the table and got up, leaving the place as fast as he could, grabbing Jimmy by the arm.

“But I thought you didn’t-” Jimmy was trying to keep his balance. Edgar released him just before he fell.

“Sorry. Yes, me neither. But these things happen right? Haha. It will be fun, yes, fun.” Edgar could barely hide his nervous breakdown. He almost lost it when he felt Jimmy finally keeping up with him, walking at his side.

“Yes,” the younger man said, grabbing him by his shoulder and looking directly into Edgar’s eyes “This is gonna be fucking A!”

Jimmy smiled. Edgar felt chills. And in some corner of ‘The Happy Whale’ Johnny had his fifth cup of black coffee without sugar nor cream.

'I am, without doubts, fucked up beyond recognition’


End file.
